Democratic Republic of Congo: Children at war

Although the Transitional Government of National Unity of
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has recently been
established, thousands of children in the DRC continue to
compelled to sacrifice their childhood for the political and
military advancement of the leaders of the country's warring
parties. As child soldiers, they face a catalogue of abuses:
many are killed, all carry the physical and psychological
scars of their experiences.

"The recruitment and use of
children under 18 in armed conflict constitute war crimes
and, as such, they are crimes against the entire
international community, not just against children in DRC,"
the organization said in Democratic Republic of Congo:
Children at war, a new report documenting the plight of
thousands of child soldiers in the Great Lakes
region.

"The ruthless exploitation of Congo's children by
leaders of armed forces to further their own material and
political ends is the most egregious example of human rights
abuses in of the entire conflict in the Congo," Amnesty
International said. "The international community should
bring pressure on all parties involved in the DRC, including
leaders of all armed groups, to hold recruiters accountable
for their acts, and to bring them to justice at the
international and national levels."

Children interviewed
by Amnesty International, after they escaped or have been
demobilized, give horrifying accounts of how the armed
conflicts in the DRC have affected them both physically and
psychologically. As one recounted: "We had to walk for days.
At night, I had to raid villages in order to get some food.
In October, I was part of the attack on Uvira. It was
horrible. I was afraid and didn't want to kill anybody or be
killed. After the attack, I left my gun and ran
away."

Since 1996, thousands of children have been press
ganged into the army and militias in the DRC. Recruitment
drives are almost continuous and forcible conscription is
prevalent although voluntary enlistment is also
widespread.

Children have been abducted in the streets or
taken from classrooms, refugee camps or camps for the
internally displaced. Many others have also been taken from
their homes at gunpoint, as their distraught parents looked
on helplessly. Others have reported being picked up while
playing in their neighbourhood or walking along the road.
Some children are known to have voluntarily joined the army
or militia forces on being separated from their families and
in conditions of poverty and the collapse of basic social
services such as educational and health centres.

Once
recruited, children are usually sent to training camps along
with adult conscripts for military training and
indoctrination. Here, they are subjected to violent
treatment and in some camps, children have died from
deplorable conditions. After a few weeks of training, the
children are deployed to the frontlines for combat to be
used as cannon fodder. Frontline missions include serving as
decoys, detectors of enemy positions, bodyguards for
commandants, or sex slaves. Most girl soldiers have reported
being sexually exploited or raped by their commanders or
other soldiers. Boys and girls are also often used as
porters for ammunition, water and food, or as cooks.

Once
on the frontlines, children are repeatedly forced to commit
abuses, including rape and murder, against enemy soldiers
and civilians. Some have been made to kill their own family
members, while others have been forced to engage in
cannibalistic or sexual acts with the corpses of enemies
killed in battle. Children are often given drugs and alcohol
to steel their emotions as they carry out these
crimes.

This was the case with Kalami, aged 15, a six-year
veteran of the one of the armed groups in eastern DRC: "We
were told to kill people by forcing them to stay in their
homes while we burned them down. We even had to bury some
alive. One day, my friends and I were forced by our
commanders to kill a family, to cut up their bodies and to
eat them ... My life is lost. I have nothing to live for. At
night, I can no longer sleep. I keep thinking of those
horrible things I have seen and done when I was a
soldier."

The personal price paid by child soldiers is
often high: brutalised and deeply traumatised by their
experiences, many continue to be haunted by the memories of
the abuses they witnessed or were forced to commit. For girl
soldiers, beyond the brutality and trauma of rape itself,
sexual assault may result in serious physical injury and
forced pregnancy, as well as infection with HIV or other
sexually transmitted diseases.

Some former child soldiers
who have been demobilised told Amnesty International that
they are afraid to return to their communities because the
local people witnessed them taking part in
crimes.

International opinion has strengthened against the
illegality and immorality of recruiting and using children
in conflicts. International consensus on the prohibition of
recruitment and use of children now exists to discourage
this practice throughout the DRC. Most of the warring
parties in the DRC have committed themselves to end the
recruitment and use of child soldiers.

However, there is a
vast discrepancy between public commitments and actual
attempts made by various governments and armed groups to
protect children from being used as combatants. The
demobilization of child soldiers has been too timid and
limited in scale to have any real effect on the problem.
Demobilization initiatives often ignore the crucial role
played by families and local communities in the child's
successful reintegration into civilian life.

In eastern
Congo, the potential re-recruitment of former child soldiers
remains one of the biggest challenges to demobilisation
efforts throughout the country.

"Going beyond the legal
and political abolition of recruitment and use of child
soldiers, economic development and peace building efforts
must be addressed, so that demobilization and rehabilitation
of former child soldiers can be sustainable. If not
addressed properly, its legacy for the DRC, and for its
children who witnessed and committed crimes, will be
profound and enduring" the organization concluded.

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